


Closing In

by h00ligan



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Substance Abuse, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 01:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21028304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h00ligan/pseuds/h00ligan
Summary: Klaus and Vanya talk about being alone and Reginald's favorite hobby of locking his children up and the resulting trauma





	Closing In

Ever since coming back, Vanya didn’t like to be in the house, at all. Klaus knew why, still felt it sometimes, felt the panic set in when he was in a room alone, in the dingy lighting of the house. But, even as it rained in the courtyard, Vanya didn’t come inside, only sat on the bench.

“Hey, Van,” Klaus started gently, sliding up beside her. “I don’t know if your powers are strong enough to stop a cold. You want to come inside?” he asked, holding his clear plastic umbrella over her head, as though she wasn’t already drenched. When Vanya looked at back at the mansion, he knew that look all too well. The look of somebody who feared even going inside.

She shook her head. “I can’t. When I’m somewhere indoors, alone, it’s like the room again. It’s like when I was locked up in there and nobody could hear me, nobody knew where I was. I’ve always had claustrophobia, but since I remembered what happened to me as a kid, I just don’t want to be alone like that. I know you probably don’t get it, but…”

“Van, I spent almost a year in the trenches. And, you know you’re not the only person Dad isolated like that, right?” Vanya looked up at him. “When _I_ had special training, Dad took me to the mausoleum on the other end of town. He’d lock me in overnight. He didn’t even leave a candle or flashlight in with me. Sometimes, all I can see is blackness and all I can hear is hundreds of ghosts screaming my name, clawing at me.” Ever since returning from Vietnam, Klaus had adopted a thousand yard stare sometimes, as though he left something there. Which, he had. “The trenches were bad, too. Sometimes there’d be so many people out there that it wasn’t safe to return to barracks for the night. Our whole squad would be piled up on top of each other if we were going to sleep.”

“Thought you’d like that,” Vanya said, a small, teasing smile touching her lips. “You always made a big deal about how touch-starved you were.”

“It was nice at first, yeah, but it was also in the shit. I’m just trying to tell you, I get it.”

“How do you make it stop?” She looked skyward. “Every time I’m in the house, I just remember Luther choking me out, if I’m home, I’m alone. And… I really don’t want to be alone.”

“You don’t,” Klaus admitted. “I know I’m not, like, your board-certified child abuse therapist or whatever, but when I lived with Diego before he kicked me out, I _freaked out_ whenever he went out for the night, cracking skulls. He could wait until I was fast asleep, but I could tell the _second_ he walked out of that door. And my coping mechanisms were, you know, not great. I’d take some pills and wait for it to knock me out again. But in the off-season, there were weeks that our combined pay would barely cover food. Then we’d do sensory deprivation. That’s a definite no-go for you, though. I can’t imagine how much of a trigger that would be.”

“What about when you were at rehab? You didn’t have drugs then.”

“Well, the 24-hour monitor period was the worst. You know, throwing up turning into dry heaving, the chills, the sweats, the ants, throw some ghost voices in it already because that’s a special kind of personal hell.” He sighed. “Sometimes I wish I was the one whose powers got taken away.”

“But, you get to see Dave. You still get to talk to Ben. I’d give _anything_ to have another conversation with him where you’re not translating for him. You and him were the only ones who didn’t treat me like shit for being ordinary.”

“Vanya, you were never ordinary,” Klaus replied. “You were the smartest of us—once Five left—you were the only one with any whisper of humanity that didn’t get drained by Reginald telling us how any sort of sympathy is weakness. We all had to adjust to living in the real world where you couldn’t just punch away your problems, and you’re the only one who did. Luther and Diego refused to move on, Allison thought that using her powers even more is a halfway valid coping mechanism, and me, well.” He giggled. “We really treated you like shit.” He stood. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Well, how bad is your apartment if there’s someone in there with you who isn’t manipulating you to murder your whole family?” He held out his hand, which Vanya took. “Oh, do you have bus fare?”

“Yeah, I have you covered, buddy.”

“So, when did you realize that drugs made your powers go away?” Vanya asked on the bus.

“Oh, uh, a few weeks before the first mission. That incident with Mom’s heels. They kept me hopped up pretty good, and everything was so _fucking quiet_. Then, when I got hit with one of Diego’s knives during training. And, you know, every other time I got hurt on mission or during training and Mom would give me painkillers because I was her _special little boy_ who she didn’t want hurting.”

“Twelve?” Vanya looked a picture of shock.

“Well, you were four,” he shrugged. Klaus helped Vanya off the bus and wasted no time disappearing into her closet when they were inside. “We… have to get you… out of those wet clothes before you catch your death or whatever it was Mom used to say when we played in puddles as kids.” He emerged soon after with two pairs of sweatpants and matching sweaters, tossing one of each item towards her before getting changed.

“You really don’t have any shame, do you?” Vanya laughed at the sweatpants coming up short on his tall frame and the sweater almost becoming one of his crop tops.

“Well, sometimes,” he replied with a small smile. “But come on. We’re siblings, and you always had to help us out of our uniforms if they got too sticky with blood or rain to come off on their own. Plus, dear sister, you’re not really my type.” He lounged back on the couch, crossing his ankles on the coffee table.

Vanya went back in her room to change, undeniably feeling better with a set of dry clothes on. Sometimes, she guessed, Klaus did know best. “I’m not letting that part go, by the way. How did you even get stuff when you were a teenager?”

“Fans. All the little delinquents loved me, and they let me partake.”

“Dad said you weren’t supposed to interact with the fans.”

“Dad sent all the fans he knew I interacted with away,” he replied bitterly. “Ben was allowed to hang out with girls at cafes and libraries, but first time he found out I was hanging out with a boy, not even sexually yet, he paid his parents off and sent me in the mausoleum for a whole weekend.”

“You really think it was a homophobia thing?”

“Well, why wouldn’t it be?” He sat up. “I mean, he didn’t care when Ben or Diego smoked or drank with me.”

Vanya was quiet. “Ben was… on drugs?”

Klaus gut felt like it was punched at the look. “Only enough to calm the Horror down. Never went as far as I did. Just light, healthy teenage rebellion stuff.”

Vanya nodded. “Do you think if he was sober, he would’ve…?”

“He would’ve long before if he was sober,” Klaus replied, hugging his sister close. “You know how with your powers, everything can sometimes resonate to this… painful amount right before you let it out? It’s the same with my ghosts, the voices get so overwhelming until it builds enough so I can touch them, or they can touch me. That’s what it was for Ben, all the time, making sure the Horror didn’t get out. It tortured him, Van.”

“I didn’t know.”

“When he’d complain about it to anyone but me, they’d say he was whining too much and should get over it because he was the most powerful one. He was scared to speak up. God,” he sighed. “toxic masculinity is such a bitch.”

“Klaus?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we figure this out together? Our powers, sobriety, existing indoors like normal people?”

“Vanya,” Klaus kissed her forehead. “I want nothing more.”


End file.
